Immigrants and supporters demonstrate during a rally in support of Daca in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC in September 2017.
Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images

I can’t put my finger on it, but sometime over the last few years, I became a national villain.

I was a wide-eyed 12-year-old when I arrived to the United States. My parents owned a small construction company in Brazil, and, like many before and after, moved here hoping to forge a brighter future for themselves and for their child. Possessing minimal savings and limited English, they worked hard to restart our family business in Los Angeles.

After many years of failed visa renewals, I moved to San Francisco, where I worked at startups to first pay for community college and then tuition at the University of California, Berkeley. During my senior year, President Obama enacted Daca – the policy that allowed me to remain in the US, work at Google, and found two technology companies.

I'm listed by Forbes magazine as one of 30 notables under 30. My latest startup has raised $16.5m in funding

Today I’m a 26-year-old tech entrepreneur listed by Forbes magazine as one of 30 notables under 30. My latest startup has raised $16.5m in funding. Like my parents, I’m an immigrant reaching out for the American Dream. But America is no longer reaching back. My ability to stay in the US depends on my now-shaky status as a Dreamer.

Immigration has fueled innovation and entrepreneurship in the US since its founding, but President Trump wants you to fear, loathe and even banish “aliens” and “illegals”. The current administration accuses the 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the US of stealing jobs, abusing welfare, committing crimes, promoting terrorism and lowering wages. Their lives – lives so often shaped by strife and oppression – are reduced to talking points that fan the flames of xenophobia and racism.

The United States is a country of immigrants, but new arrivals have always been met with skepticism – if not outright resistance. From the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, to the Naturalization Act of 1790, to the Homestead Act of 1862, to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, to the National Origins Act of 1924, to Executive Order 9066 of 1942, to Executive Order 13769 of 2017, bigotry disguised as nationalism is nothing new.

Were the US to deport all Daca recipients, estimates predict the US would lose $60bn in federal taxes and $460bn in economic growth

Yet even as the administration attempts to dehumanize us, no one can argue with the numbers supporting Daca. Some 1.8 million immigrants entered the US before their 16th birthday and meet Daca requirements. More than 690,000 are currently enrolled for Daca protection, and 91–97% of Daca recipients are working, attending school, or serving in the military. Daca recipients are doctors, entrepreneurs, technologists, soldiers, teachers, social workers, and ambitious kids. We are full-blooded Americans in every way – except citizenship.

Our entrepreneurial drive has helped hone the competitive edge of the nation, stimulate economic growth, expand the capacities of the US, and strengthen the spirit of the nation. Dreamers are not the problem. Were the US to deport all Daca recipients, estimates predict that the US would lose $60bn in federal taxes and $460.3bn in economic growth over the next 10 years. Dreamers are not the problem. We are a part of the solution.

Consider the following: 25% of all new businesses in the US are started by immigrants, and more than half of the billion-dollar companies in the country were founded by immigrants. Each of these, on average, creates 760 new jobs. Apple would cease to exist if Steve Jobs’s father had been banned entrance into the US from Syria. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is the son of a Cuban immigrant. Apple, Amazon, Google, Colgate, Yahoo, Tesla, Capital One, eBay and more than 200 other companies on the Fortune 500 owe their existence to immigrants.

Our government pursues policies that strip immigrants, even toddlers, of their humanity by treating them as cogs in a bureaucratic machine, exemplars of racial and ethnic stereotypes, instead of unique individuals with ordinary hopes and dreams. Fearmongering makes it possible for those in power to spin economic and social inequalities as something outside the system, rather than inherent to it. They did it. It’s their fault, not ours.

Apple, Amazon, Google, Colgate, Yahoo!, Tesla, Capital One, eBay and more than 200 other companies owe their existence to immigrants

As Americans, we must ask ourselves: why is there little dignity in work? Why is retirement so hard to imagine? Why do we need GoFundMe campaigns to pay medical bills? Why do we single out immigrants for all these inequities?

I am eternally grateful to the Obama administration for implementing Daca to recognize children who grew up in the US, identify as American, and make measurable contributions to our country. I grew up in America. I attended American public schools. I’ve founded American companies. I’ve paid taxes since I entered the workforce. I think, speak and dream American. This is my home.

I am an undocumented American as much as I am an undocumented immigrant. I am a Dreamer.